Blog Archives: April 2021

In September 2011 Chestnut Hill United Church, along with about forty other congregations of different religions and cultures, brought the country’s newest faith-based community organization - POWER Interfaith - to birth. Initially created as “Philadelphians Empowered to Witness and Rebuild,” our work has jumped the boundaries of this city and moved across the state of Pennsylvania. We are now “Pennsylvanians Organized to Witness, Empower, and Rebuild.” (Good thing our city and our state both begin with “P”!) Ten years later, POWER has ...

Dear Friends, Though this past year has been a very challenging year to say the least, we are starting to see the light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel and have been fortunate to have seen light all along in our faith community. We found spiritual fellowship with a larger community through worshipping online. We celebrated the Tice family officially becoming whole. We celebrated new life through baptism. We celebrated and affirmed one of our beloved trans family members through Renaming. And we celebrated the gifts and the service of ...

The world may have been a little quieter with people shut inside, but my mind certainly hasn’t been. Maybe that feels true for you, as well. This poem from Marie Howe’s collection, The Kingdom of Ordinary Time, has been speaking to me of late: Prayer by Marie Howe Every day I want to speak with you. And every day something more important calls for my attention—the drugstore, the beauty products, the luggage I need to buy for the trip. Even now I can hardly sit here among the falling piles of paper and clothing, the garbage trucks outside ...